Kokoro

Rating:
Summary: Poetic tale with meaning for everyone
Review: The depth of this novel amazed me ... I cannot imagine the torment that Sensei felt, keeping his secret to himself until the very end of his life. Orphaned at a young age, betrayed by his uncle over money, betrayer of his best friend over love, cause of his friend's suicide ... I can only hope that the narrator got as much out of Sensei's story as I did.

The last part, Sensei's confession, was clearly at the heart of Soseki's novel. I believe I read that actually, Sensei's Testament was the first part Soseki wrote originally (which would, to a degree, explain the "unfinished" abrupt ending). Also, during the first two parts "I" refers several times to Sensei's death, which would make sense chronologically if the last part was actually the first part.

In any event, reading this book was a joy, even if it was a sad tale. Soseki's prose was akin to poetry, something I think was lost a bit in the translation (which is nearly fifty years old now). Even in the translation, however, I think the poetic power that Soseki writes with is apparent. Kokoro is a classic for the ages.

Rating:
Summary: Goodbye my Friend
Review: This book ha sto be on of the saddest pieces of literature that I have ever read. It begins with a young student going to a beach with a friend of his, but the friend has to leave suddenly because of a problem withing the family. the student stays, however, and notices an older man conversing with a foreigner. If it had not been for the foreigner the student would have never noticed the man, but because he did he soon becomes infatuated with the man and goes to the same swimming spot hoping to run into the man again and again, and he does. the man who the student calls sensei, and the student strike up a friendship although it seems really one sided. The student adores the older man, but sensei is very guarded and he hides a dark past. Later the student has to return to the country because his father is dying. It is then that sensei sends a letter describing his past. this is a quite moving book that shows the limits of frienship and what passion wil make a person do. Natsume is an extraordinary writer and the translation is very well done.

Rating:
Summary: Soseki's Masterpiece on the Angst of the Changing Times
Review: This story about the emotions and relationship between a young man of the Taisho generation (1912-1926) and an older man of the Meiji generation (1868-1912) was completed in 1914, two years before the author's death. Kokoro can be considered Soseki's last great work published just before his unfortunate death. It is a story of two men of different generations coming together as representations of their times. The younger gentleman is a university student who enters an intellectual, intimate and cathartic relationship with the mysterious older man who is addressed as Sensei. In this novel, Soseki explores the interactions between the emotions (or the hearts-kokoro) of men from two different generations. The work is an examination of the social and psychological motivations of different generations that affect the way each character behaves.

At the beginning of the novel, Soseki sketches the image of Taisho Japan, where a young man searches for salvation in this new era. He meets Sensei, the unemployed intellectual older citizen of Tokyo, who possesses a mysterious past. The young man is drawn to this enigmatic Sensei and seeks solace as he beings to discover his past. Over the rest of the novel, the portrait is completed with the emotions of angst that exist in our own humanity.

This Soseki work is a brilliant work of literature worthy of the Japanese canon. I highly recommend Kokoro to anybody interested in discovering the different mind frames of Japanese citizens of the Meiji-Taisho transition years or the meeting of cross generational minds. Although Soseki uses a simple first person prose, the implications of this work are profound. While reading the book, it was often necessary to ask myself questions like: What motivates love in humanity? How can we love with guilt? How can we resolve the loneliness of modernity?

Kokoro is not a work of sanguinity; it is an exploration of the dark recesses of minds that affect human behavior and an estimation of the affects from a vanishing generation with the coming of a modern age.